The Immigrant Sociologist: Paul Siu at Chicago

Nicolas Eilbaum, Greensboro Collge

Paul Siu’s 1953 dissertation on the experience of Chinese migrants in the laundry business was a hallmark study in the Chicago sociology of migration. In 1987, almost thirty-five years after Siu defended it, the dissertation was finally published in book form. This paper identifies Siu’s key contributions and discusses why it took so long for the dissertation to be published. The article shows that Siu’s account of migration followed but also challenged Chicago sociology. An immigrant himself, Siu offered an approach to immigration that was closer to the immigrants: an immediate and often intimate window into the subjective dimension of migration. The paper uses Paul Siu’s contribution as a case study to explore the promises and challenges of an immigrant sociology in the United States.

No extended abstract or paper available

 Presented in Session 146. New Constructs, Old Data, and Incorporating Immigrants